Daily Archives: February 5, 2012

The centre of just about every galaxy is thought to host a black hole, some with masses of thousands of millions of Suns and consequently strong gravitational pulls that disrupt material around them. They had been thought to hinder the birth of stars, but now an international team of astronomers studying the nearby galaxy Centaurus A has found quite the opposite: a black hole that seems to be helping stars to form.The team, led by Dr Stanislav Shabala of the … Continue reading →

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The Camino de Santiago or the Way of St. James is a spiritual journey that pilgrims of all faiths and backgrounds have traversed for over a thousand years. The pilgrimage originally began at one’s doorstep, though modern trekkers today would find that rather difficult, particularly American pilgrims needing to cross the Atlantic. While there are a number of established routes leading to Santiago from all directions, the most popular is the Camino Frances, which crosses the Pyrenees Mountains along the … Continue reading →

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When plants engage in photosynthesis, sunlight breaks apart water and CO2 to release oxygen and build plant—and people—food. It’s cheap and ubiquitous but not much use for powering a home. Photovoltaic devices use semiconducting material like silicon in a related way, with incoming photons knocking loose electrons to generate electricity. Such devices can produce a lot of electricity on a bright sunny day. But are expensive. But what if you combined the two? That’s exactly what an international consortium of scientists have … Continue reading →

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If an alien civilization builds brightly-lit cities like those shown above of the Iberian Peninsula, future generations of telescopes might allow us to detect them. This would offer a new method of searching for extraterrestrial intelligence elsewhere in our Galaxy. In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, astronomers have hunted for radio signals and ultra-short laser pulses, but Avi Loeb (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and Edwin Turner (Princeton University) suggest that we look for their urban lights. “Looking for alien cities would be … Continue reading →